It has long been the practice in live roller conveyor systems to utilize rollers which include spring loaded axles mounted in receiving holes in the opposite side walls of the main conveyor frame, with each roller mounted on its axle by anti-friction bearings, as shown, for example, in Vogt et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,303 of 1976. It has also been conventional to utilize axles of non-circular section, such particularly as hexagonal axles, which simply need complementarily shaped receiving holes in the frame that hold the axles stationary with minimum wear between the axle and the frame.
In a recent development in the art, a bearing assembly for rollers of this type has been provided which includes a cup of a hard plastic material in which the antifriction bearing is mounted, and which is then inserted in the end of a cylindrical tube. In order to hold the bearing assembly and tube together, the outer end portion of the tube is compressed, as by swaging, to a slightly tapered shape forming a permanent interlock between the tube and the bearing and its surrounding cup. This roller is then mounted on its supporting axle by means of an axle adapter having a hexagonal bore and a cylindrical exterior which is received in the inner race of the bearing.
Rollers produced by this method for live roller conveyors have proved to be very successful in operation. However, the initial assembly is costly in requiring the equipment for and step of swaging the tube onto the supporting cup for the bearing. Also, in the event of wear of or damage to one of the bearings, it is impractically difficult to replace such bearings, because the interlock between the swaged ends of the tube and the bearing assemblies therein cannot be released without permanent damage to the tube.